Musings and Sometimes Rants about the non-equal status of Fathers in Family Law and Parenting. Additionally periodic comparisons to the treatment of men compared to women in other areas including health care.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

“Is this inherently a cultural thing? Yes. It’s a culture of patriarchy. It’s not a South Asian or Muslim culture.”

The feminists are in denial. They looked at their Duluth Wheel of Patriarchal oppression used in all DV shelters and said its those bad men and has nothing to do with culture. So all you white guys you are now being blended in with the primitive cultures of extreme Islamists, Hindu's and Sikhs. Be prepared for more misandry based on these cretins.

This is nothing more than a whitewash of primitive cultures and another feminist hive creating new myths about patriarchy implicating all males.

"Woman are revered", one of the participants says. What a load of absolute crap. Are they the women following two steps behind their man, some wearing tents, are they the girls aborted because some South Asians prefer males, are they the ones unable to pray with their man, are they the approximate 20,000 women killed world wide in dis-honour by a culture of contempt for women?

How can anyone have any respect for the feminists running these DV shelters when they continue to try and foist pure unadulterated nonsense on the unsuspecting public. It is no more than misandry wanting to put all men into a category of patriarchs trying to oppress and kill women.MJM

RICHMOND HILL — So-called ‘honour-based crimes’ should not be viewed as distinct from mainstream violence against women and the Criminal Code should not be amended to include a separate ‘honour killings’ charge, a panel agreed at what was believed to be the first-ever symposium on the subject in York Region.

“When you use the term ‘honour crimes’ the way we do in Canada, it becomes a way of saying ‘those barbaric practices’ done by ‘those barbaric cultures,’ as if the West’s hands are somehow clean,” said panelist Farrah Khan, a therapist with the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic. “Is this inherently a cultural thing? Yes. It’s a culture of patriarchy. It’s not a South Asian or Muslim culture.”

The panel — which featured self-proclaimed Muslim feminist, social worker, and beauty queen Tahmena Bokhari, and which also included Det. Christina Baker of York Regional Police, lawyer and activist Zarah Danani, and Anita Khanna, of the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians — agreed that the term ‘honour killing’ wrongfully suggests so-called honour crimes are somehow different from the crimes of yore
.
“I think it’s important that we don’t buy into the hype: We’ve got to stop creating legislation — as is going on around the globe — that targets Muslim people,” said lawyer and panelist Zarah Danani. “It’s fear-based hype finding its way into the law because we have a right-wing Conservative government.”
The symposium — entitled Honour Based Violence and the Canadian Context and hosted by the Sandgate Women’s Shelter of York Region — drew 50 or so mostly female community members, activists, and social workers to Richmond Hill’s Elgin West Community Centre.

Although ‘honour killings’ — widely understood as culturally motivated killings carried out by relatives in order to “cleanse” the family name and restore the family’s so-called honour — remain relatively rare in this country, several high-profile cases have sparked heated discussion about what event organizers called an “upward trend” in honour-based violence in Canada.

Just this month, an Ontario Superior Court judge decried the “extremely reprehensible” mindset behind so-called honour crimes, and sentenced a Scarborough man to five years in prison for speeding his minivan into his teenaged daughter, her boyfriend, and his son-in law. The Tamil man had disapproved of his daughter’s boyfriend, who was of a lower Sri Lankan caste.

The notion of ‘honour killings’ is most often associated with the Muslim community, though Canada and the United States have also seen many cases involving Sikhs and Hindus.

Ms. Danani lamented that there is an element of Islamophobia in “how these things keep getting labeled,” and said that the use of the term ‘honour killing’ is simply a bid to muster a new “phenomenon” out of an age-old offence.

“When you create a new term, you get to create a phenomenon,” she told the crowd, who shouted and clapped in agreement from their chairs in a multi-purpose room at the community centre. “You get to take it out of the everyday, and make it sound new.”

“Honour killings need not be placed ‘out there,’” echoed Det. Baker, adding that amending the Criminal Code would be a “bad idea.”

Whether Ottawa will amend legislation to include ‘honour killing’ is yet to be seen; speculation reached a fever-pitch this past summer.
In July, Rona Ambrose, Minister for the Status of Women, told a news conference in Mississauga that the government was “looking at” adding a separate charge. Later that very day, however, her statement was hastily rejected by the Justice Department.

The Criminal Code flip-flop came on the heels of a Frontier Centre for Public Policy report, which said “honour/shame codes are rife” in the non-Westernized segment of Canada’s South Asian community.
Still, Jehan Chaudhry, executive director of the Sandgate Women’s Shelter, said on Tuesday that “there is no room for discussion” as to whether so-called honour crimes — when perpetrated by members of the non-westernized South Asian community — are at all distinct from domestic violence.

“Whether it’s a brother killing a sister, the victim at the end of the day is still a woman — there’s no other way to look at it,” Ms. Chaudhry said in an interview. “What I know of Islam, what I know of Sikhism, what I know of Hindu, there is no room for ‘honour-based violence.’ Women are to be revered.”

The symposium — which offered Urdu, Mandarin, Farsi, and Tamil interpretation — convened almost precisely one year after the Conservative government released a toughened-up citizenship guide that explicitly condemned “barbaric cultural practices” such as so-called honour killings.

Monday, November 29, 2010

If this was a dad would he now be in jail and being painted as a monster as opposed to this slap on the wrist? Note the incompetent and neglectful mom wants to get custody back. The poor child if that ever happens. Shared parenting needs to be the default and when dads are allowed to stay in the life of their child they will be better protected.MJM

Sick child home alone

By STEVE BRUCE Court ReporterSat, Nov 27 - 4:54 AM

While Joanne Victoria Lawson was drinking at a bar one night, her 3½-year-old daughter was home alone with a fever — vomiting, wandering around the darkened apartment, banging on the door and crying for her mommy.

The building superintendents heard the little girl’s screams over a two-hour period and finally let themselves into the apartment. After finding the child unattended and leaving messages on the mother’s cellphone, they called police.

Lawson, 42, pleaded guilty earlier this year to child abandonment and received an 18-month conditional discharge Thursday in Halifax provincial court.

The events of March 20, 2008, cost Lawson custody of her daughter, who now lives with her father in Cape Breton.

Lawson has stopped drinking and abusing drugs, is responding well to medication for adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and hopes to eventually regain custody of the girl.

"I don’t have the words to describe how I feel every day when I wake up and I don’t have my daughter, and it’s from my own actions — actions that I quite simply don’t remember.

"It’s something I live with every day."

Lawson said she worked to keep her emotions under control when she spoke to experts about her actions. Those people interpreted that as a lack of remorse, causing the prosecutor to have concerns about having agreed to propose a conditional discharge.

"Everybody seems to think I don’t have a lot of remorse for this incident, which is absolutely not true,"

Lawson said, fighting back tears. "I know exactly what could have happened and it scares the hell out of me.

I love my child very much."

Court was told Lawson drank a bottle of cheap red wine at her apartment on Layton Road in Halifax before calling a cab to take her to a downtown watering hole shortly after 8 p.m.

When police entered the apartment at about 10:30 p.m., the bathtub had about 15 centimetres of water in it.

It appeared Lawson had used the tub to wash vomit off her daughter’s clothes earlier in the day.

The woman returned home intoxicated at about 2 a.m. and was upset at the superintendents for what they had done.

Lawson had made tentative arrangements for a babysitter that evening but forgot to follow through on them, defence lawyer Margaret MacKenzie of Nova Scotia Legal Aid told the court.

"She loves her child and was devoted to her child," MacKenzie said of her client, who works as a cook.

"She admits to screwing up big time that night. There’s no doubt in anybody’s mind that alcohol was the main player and (the child) suffered as a result of that."

The Crown proceeded by indictment on the charge, which meant the maximum penalty was five years in prison.

Crown attorney Susan MacKay said it was fortunate that Lawson lived in an apartment building and not in a house, where the child’s cries might have gone unheeded by neighbours.

"This incident is very serious," MacKay said. "I would hope that this criminal process . . . will have a positive impact on Ms. Lawson’s future behaviour."

MacKay said a medical checkup found that the child was suffering from a bug of some kind but was otherwise in good health. There were no signs of any previous abuse and the dwelling was clean and well maintained.

Lawson had no previous criminal convictions and, by pleading guilty, accepted responsibility for her actions, the prosecutor said in recommending the conditional discharge to the judge.

"I think she’s getting a bit of a break and I hope she knows it," MacKay said. "It would be a very different circumstance today if further trauma had come to that child."

Lawson will be on probation for 18 months, with conditions that she abstain from alcohol and drugs, participates in counselling for substance abuse or any other issue identified by her sentence supervisor, and performs 50 hours of community service. She also can’t have contact with her daughter unless it’s through lawyers or in relation to a family court order.

If she fulfills the conditions, the conviction will be discharged and she won’t have a criminal record.

"This was a situation that had the potential for real disaster, over and above the seriousness of what did occur," the judge said in adopting the recommended sentence.

"One shudders to think what could have happened to (the child), left alone at 3½ years of age. She could have aspirated on her own vomit. She could have fallen into the bathtub. . . . She could have come into contact with matches.

"I could be here for an hour listing all the possibilities. All of the reasons that adults don’t leave children alone can be conjured up here to illustrate how some sort of success was snatched from the jaws of potential disaster."

Beaton said the court was essentially being asked to emphasize the positive changes Lawson has made in her life.

"That takes a leap of faith on the part of the court and on the part of the community," the judge said.
She urged Lawson not to do anything to abuse that faith.

The current surge in gang violence, that not only leads to injury but also death, amongst youths is something we have not witnessed before. Over the last five years, I have been hearing from friends who are police investigators who pointed out to a rising trend in youth gangs, youth violence and juvenile crime across a certain section of youths. My police friends explained that though it is unclear if overall youth crimes and violence is increasing, the rise within that section of youth is worrisome. One police friend shared with me about an incident in Far East Plaza about 5 years ago whereby a CID officer was chased by a group of youths armed with parang. My police friend said “when in the history of Singapore have we ever seen CID officers running and youths chasing and also with a weapon…

CID officers always have had a fierce reputation whereby only others flee at their sight”. Another police friend told me that he has been seeing an increase in crimes involving youths as young as 17 years old carrying weapons and stealing or robbing. As I stated earlier, this thing has been a rising trend for last five years. Though the field police officers want to combat this, the police management basically takes the usual complacent Singapore civil service attitude of “lets not open a can of worms”.

Each time my police friends share these stories with me, I always asked them what they thought was the common root problem. They cited that these kids often come from divorced families or seperated parents. They shared that unlike in earlier decades where the divorce families were also often associated with other problems, lower literacy and lower socio-economic status, these kids often do come from families where their single parent having care rights and control rights over them are white coller, well educated and coming from good socio-economic background.

The police officers blamed how womens’ charter was radically implemented in Singapore and pointed out that the women’s charter though having empowered women have instead failed to put in place checks, create a balance or moderation in that empowerment process to allow a peaceful co-existance between seperated or divorced parents for the benefit of the children. When I went to review the women’s charter with friends from other countries who are trained legal experts, they pointed out there is absolutely no check, no balance to prevent even the worst abuses by women against their husbands or ex-husbands. They also pointed out that the womens’ charter has in place only weak, useless and superficial processes for amicable dispute resolution between the mother and father of the child. Instead what is in place is legal ballistic weaponry for full battle against the husband. Hence when the typical mechanisms in the womens’ charter are extremely hostile towards one gender, given seperations/divorces/custody disputes/alimony disputes/maintenance disputes are essentially domestic problems the dispute then only grows bigger and not smaller and drags for a longer period than concluding faster.

When the couple is facing stress in the marriage, the Womens’ Charter provides greater mechanisms for hostile take out than for peaceful reconciliation. The couple basically have just 2 to 3 opportunities at lame and weak counselling or mediating sessions with the least qualified social workers. If that fails, then what is available is operation ‘take out’. Lawyers whom the couple engage from the beginning aggravate the situation because their remuneration lies when the couple go to court and divorce/annul their marriage. The lawyers profit little in peaceful reconciliations.

After the divorce, during the next few decades when the parents are alive, when there is again dispute over maintenance whatsover there is absolutely no proper mechanisms for peaceful and amicable resolution of the issue. Instead they need to go to court again and courts are by nature not positive mechanisms for family issues. There again the womens’ charter provides another set of ballistic missiles for another operation ‘take out’.

In this whole process, the one who reaps no benefit nor even sadistic pleasure is the children. They face enormous mental pressures in such situations. Watching their parents tear each other apart in court itself is not a pleasant experience for them. It does not help their self-esteem at all when they see their friends having normal families doing families activities. Even when the parent remarries, the child cannot refer to that person as father or mother in the presence of his/her friends like how their friends do. The parents also try to make up for the situation through pampering.

I annaecdotally surveyed children from a 2-3 families in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia where the parents divorced and the kids grew up in such a divorced family. I found that in those families in Malaysia and Indonesia where they had great extended family support or relative support or neighbours support on a daily basis, they turned out well in terms of completion of tertiary education, non-participation in crime or violence, non-participation in drugs/smoking/alcohol etc. On the other hand, in the Singapore case since there is no support on daily basis from extended family, neighbours or relatives, the kids tend to end up with the wrong company of friends and aimlessly search for a purpose and self-worth in life and try to achieve it through risk taking activities such as gangs, sex, alcohol, drugs, violence, smoking.

What is clear is that though Womens groups in Singapore, where lawyers are largely represented, may proclaim victories in being able to set up punitive legal mechanisms within the Womens’ charter, they need to claim resonsibility in creating hostile environment for divorced couples to sort out their families issues over their lifetimes and in that process affecting a generation of kids pushing them to resort to directions which society can ill afford to see them head into. They need to take responsiblity for destroying the destiny of a generation of divorced children in order to protect the well-being and rights of divorced women.

What is required now is action to replace the Womens’ charter with Family charter which creates not just checks but also balances and which ensures the lifelong well-being of the child is protected. The primary focus should not be about only the protection of women but instead women, children, men collectively. The reform of the Womens’ Charter to Family Charter need to be headed by non-lawyers and instead by social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists.

Judge backs angry fathers over contact with children

A high court judge yesterday launched an extraordinary attack on the family justice system for failing separated fathers and their children.

Mr Justice Munby, a respected judge of the Family Division, said he was going public with a judgment following a private hearing, while keeping the parties anonymous, because judges needed to "face up honestly" to the failings of the system so as not to forfeit public confidence.

He called for sweeping changes to the system after a father had to abandon his five-year battle for contact with his seven-year-old daughter following 43 court hearings in front of 16 judges. The "wholly deserving father", who last saw his daughter in December 2001, had left court "in tears, having been driven to abandon his battle for contact".

The delays in the case were scandalous, added the judge, who said he felt desperately sorry for the father, whose case was "far from unique".

The judgment follows a number of high-profile protests by fathers who accuse the family courts of treating separated fathers unfairly.

Mr Justice Munby said the last two years had been, from the father's perspective, "an exercise in absolute futility".

It was "shaming to have to say it" but he agreed with the father's view that he had been let down by the system.

The judge suggested that the way the courts dealt with contact applications might even breach the European convention on human rights, which guarantees the right to respect for family life, the right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time, and the enforcement of court orders.

He said he could understand why there was disappointment that a pilot scheme announced by the government this month to try to divert contact disputes from court only encouraged mediation rather than making it mandatory.

Fathers' groups have condemned the scheme as "doomed to failure".

The judge called for a new protocol for handling contact disputes, with every case allo cated to a single judge who would set a timetable for cases to be dealt with in weeks rather than months. Even serious and complex cases would be finalised in months rather than years.

In difficult cases, an independent social worker could be appointed who would be "on hand on Saturday morning to make sure that the handover takes place" or even act as go-between if the mother could not bring herself to meet the father.

Where mothers were determined to flout contact orders, a "flabby judicial response" encouraged them to believe court orders could be ignored with impunity, he said.

A judge might stipulate in an order for Saturday contact that the father's solicitor should notify the judge on Monday if there were any problems, so that the mother could be summoned to come to court on Tuesday and an order made committing her to jail, but suspended.

Then, "the mother can be told in very plain English that if she again prevents contact taking place the following Saturday, she is likely to find herself in prison the following week".

He said the mother in yesterday's case had obstructed contact with threadbare excuses and made groundless allegations that the father had frightened the child, forcibly fed her and threatened not to return her.
Despite the court rulings, the mother continued to obstruct contact until the father snapped and lost his temper with her in December 2001.

Mr Justice Munby said that although it was the father who made the first move that day, it was the mother who carried the legal, parental and moral responsibility for what happened.

The judge ended with a public apology to the father, who was described as a warm and caring man, and his daughter. "We failed them. The system failed them."

He added that the debate in the newspapers on problems in the family justice system made uncomfortable reading for the judges. "We need to take note. We need to act. And we need to act now."

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The tragic Campione case and the abusive manner in which the system treated the Father.

Here is what the hired gun lawyer for the killer mom said about the person who killed her two daughters.

"Her lawyer, Mary Cremer, argued that her client was a loving mother who struggled with mental illness." Is it any wonder few can believe what lawyers say.

What an oxymoronic statement. It is very common in Family Courts to raise false allegations of abuse. This is taught by unscrupulous lawyers and feminists , particularly those operating in DV Shelters. Loving moms don't kill their children but those with serious emotional instability do with greater frequency than biological fathers. http://victimfeministcentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/mothers-commit-vast-majority-of.html

We have a woman with some personality disorders. There is a cult of moms who have lost custody who call themselves "protective parents." My research and observation of them shows them to be a vile and destructive group of individuals who were abusive to their children. This one took the delusion to the extreme by killing her progeny. It is also the most extreme form of Parental Alienation where the parent tries to keep the children from the other through hate. What it all boils down to is the woman hated her hubby far more than she could ever love her children.

The actions by the courts in requiring Mr. Campione to use Supervised Access to see his children are part of the matriarchal controls present throughout Child Custody and Family Law. As much as he advised those in charge, especially the Barrie based Children's Aid Society, the children were in danger he was ignored. The belief is men are bad - women are benign despite the aggregated evidence to the contrary. Most CAS' are female run and highly biased against dads and highly favourable toward maternal custody. Some will spend 10's of thousands of dollars, as is Chatham-Kent CAS right now to remove loving dads from their children's lives.

They are not accountable to any one at this time except for their financials. The Ontario Ombudsman has no jurisdiction and the Minister, Laurel Broten, ignores complaints.

You can thank feminist mythology for this state of affairs. They believe and have convinced the Police, Judges, Lawyers politicians and social services that men are coercive abusers and women innocent victims.

If any one has read the details of this case and the actions of this woman you will be truly sickened at the depravity.

False Allegations of abuse against dads means sure fire custody. In contested custody cases local DV shelters and lawyers will offer oblique suggestions to moms, who may not have been abused, to place it in their affidavit to ensure custody and supervised access for dads. For some moms this is one more quotient of revenge. Perjury is commonplace in Family Court and never prosecuted. The lawyers and DV shelters know the ropes.

In addition, the DV shelter will require the mom to sign a non-disclosure agreement to ensure their advice doesn’t get into the public domain. Studies have shown family law related false allegations of abuse, some requiring protection orders, can be as high as 70%. The killer was following established protocols in the war against dads occurring every day across the country and supported by incompetent social service agencies like the Children’s Aid Society.

Approximately 280 Divorces a weekday across Canada

There is a very large and lucrative divorce industry in Canada. Discounting for weekends and holidays we see about 280 divorces per working day. Lawyers rake in billions and the social services, mental health segments also profit handsomely especially in contested custody cases.

Moms get physical custody in over 90% of cases. The judge in this case is typical. They receive training from a secretive organization called the National Judicial Institute. This training tells judges men are abusers and women benign. If a woman claims she is abused she is to be believed without any evidentiary standards. This judge clearly believes this very disturbed killer is believable despite the jury’s verdict. This judge is but one of many spouting the same drivel.

The myth of male only Domestic Violence and he myth of Patriarchal Oppression

The DV industry, the Judge and the CAS in Barrie who support the junk science in the Duluth Wheel of patriarchal oppression of women in Canada, outside of the real oppression by certain religious cults, can give no explanation for the greater degree of violence in Lesbian relationships as compared to heterosexual. Lie and Gentlewarrior surveyed 1,099 lesbians, finding that 52% had been a victim of violence by their female partner, 52% said they had used violence against their female partner, and 30% said they had used violence against a non-violent female partner. Finally, Lie, Schilit, Bush, Montague and Reyes (1991) reported, in a survey of 350 lesbians, that rates of verbal, physical and sexual abuse were all significantly higher in lesbian relationships than in heterosexual relationships: 56.8% had been sexually victimized by a female, 45% had experienced physical aggression, and 64.5% experienced physical or emotional aggression. Of this sample of women, 78.2% had been in a prior relationship with a man. Reports of violence by men were all lower than reports of violence in prior relationships with women (sexual victimization, 41.9% (vs. 56.8% with women); physical victimization 32.4% (vs. 45%) and emotional victimization 55.1% (vs. 64.5%). (See Patriarchy And Wife Assault: The Ecological Fallacy by Donald G. Dutton, Ph.D. Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia)

Domestic Violence in Canada Fact vs Fiction

Mrs. Campione based on her mental health profile and the fact she killed two innocents is far more likely to be the abuser not her husband. The judge, through his comments, showed a clear lack of knowledge on the abuse by partners of both genders, in this country. Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile, 2005. An estimated 7% of women and 6% of men representing 653,000 women and 546,000 men in a current or previous spousal relationship encountered spousal violence during the five years up to and including 2004, according to a comprehensive Statistics Canada report on family violence. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/Daily/English/050714/d050714a.htm

Keep in mind what you see in the paper is what is reported to police. The numbers above from Stats Canada are those based on surveys which are more comprehensive.

Unfortunately in Canada, and indeed most English speaking western democracies, this judge’s biases are widely held. This one just made it all too blatant in his remarks. As stated earlier 90% of physical custody in Canada goes to mom based on similar rhetoric, not fact, this judge espouses. Its no accident 75% of women initiate divorce because the evidence is clear they will win custody of the children, they will be guaranteed tax free income in a child support award of over $700.00 a month for two children if dad grosses close to $50,000.00 a year, no matter if mom makes far more than the newly removed father. That $8,400.00 being tax free is equivalent to over $10,000.00 if taxable. They may get alimony if they can create a sad enough story, including false allegations of violence, and they will get 50% of all assets accumulated during the marriage.

If 90% of something went to a single party – say jobs to white anglophones in the public service we would be shouting from the rooftops. It appears to be OK in Family Law to discriminate in a sexist manner against dads. Think about it and then wonder why many TV commercials show dads as bumbling idiots. We men accept it – well at least most do – but if we were to give an opinion on why so many bilingual francophones from Quebec dominate public service positions we have strong opinions, White males – actually in Family Law – all males are not in the back seat of the bus – they are kicked off.

Stong is an ex Liberal politician in the Superior Court of Justice. This Judge, therefore, does Family Law cases. No dad stands a chance in his court. He has to go.

This is but one of many Family Law cases where identity and gender politics play a role causing the worst of negative outcomes for children. Justice Stong evidenced his gender biased views in his remarks in effect blaming the dad - a victim - and excusing the vicious and evil mom. Stong is an ex-Liberal member of the Ontario legislature. A further tragedy is he handles Family Law Cases and no dad stands a chance for custody in his court. He should be removed but that will not happen. No federal judge has ever been removed for bias or incompetence. Children become the recipients of many negative outcomes with the sole custody model in Canada. Ninety percent of physical custody goes to mom in a sexist and biased legal system. Children would be far better of in a shared/equal parenting environment as proposed in Bill C-422. Get behind the bill and help prevent further tragedies. The kids will have both fit parents in their lives and be better protected.

I am always very surprised when I see statements like “How can a mother kill her children”. I have concluded these folks just don’t know the facts. These facts are clearly tabulated by some government agencies every year. In the USA for a very long time the evidence is moms are the most likely killers and abusers of their children. It ought to be no different in Canada except Stats. Can. does not break the figures down like the USA and Australia. In those countries they separate out the male parties as Biological Father and other. If you want the truth about moms being the most common killers and abusers go here for the data. The links in the tabulated evidence over many years will take you to the original source data. http://victimfeministcentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/mothers-commit-vast-majority-of.html The first graph shows the situation for Western Australia in 2006-07 where there were 21 child homicides. Mom killed 11, her new partner or boyfriend killed 5 and the biological father 5. So mom and her new partner killed 16 of the 21. A child is far less protected when the biological father is removed and this occurs hundreds of times a working day across Canada. Mom gets sole physical custody in 90% of cases. Dad, if lucky, gets 15% visitation but the new boyfriend sees the children 24/7.

November 17, 2010 – 10:31 am

REUTERS/J.P. Moczuls

A relative comforts Leo Campione (L) as Campione leaves a funeral service for his two daughters Serena, 3, and Sophia, 1, outside St. Peter's Catholic Church in Woodbridge, a Toronto suburb, October 10, 2006. The girls were believed to be murdered by his estranged wife Elaine in Barrie, Ontario, on October 4.

He just couldn’t leave well enough alone. Judge Alfred Stong, I mean, who presided over the Elaine Campione murder trial. Two days ago the jury brought in a decision of first-degree murder and a 25-year sentence against Elaine Campione, who freely confessed to drowning her two little girls in a bathtub, and who freely stated in a videotape that her motivation was hatred for, and revenge against her husband Leo.

The trial was over, But Judge Stong added comments after the verdict announcement suggesting that if had the power to overturn the jury’s verdict, he would. He said, “It is more than disconcerting to think that if Campione had not been so abused, so used and discarded as a person, her two daughters could still be alive…” Judge Stong was determined that even if it is Campione that gets locked up, Canadians would know that the real villain, morally speaking, is Leo Campione, the father of the dead girls (even though his alleged abusiveness was entirely based on his wife’s allegations and never proved), and it is actually the “discarded” Elaine Campione who is the victim.

Judge Stong felt such personal animus against the grieving father that he wanted to deny Mr. Campione and his parents their opportunity to read a victim-impact statement, standard practice even with mandatory- sentencing cases. He only relented under strong pressure from the prosecutor, who reminded the judge that the murdered girls had been “an extremely important part of [Mr. Campione's] life.”

The judge’s attitude is shameful. But what can you expect from someone who has been trained – literally, judges take structured learning programs steeped in feminist myths and misandric conspiracy theories – that women are never abusive or violent unless they have been driven to it by an abusive male. Judge Stong just could not get it into his head – he alluded to the “unimaginable facts of this case” – that a woman could kill her children without a motivation involving a controlling male that somehow drove her to the act.

Why did it not occur to the judge to blame the CAS? The CAS was well aware of Elaine Campione’s quixotic and alarming history. They knew that Campione had exhibited many signs of psychosis, that she had been hospitalized in psychiatric wards, believed people were out to kill her and kidnap her children, and exhibiting such bizarre and/or negligent behaviours toward her girls that mother-substitutes, including her own mother, had to be constantly parachuted into her household if it was to function at all.

Yet the CAS decided the mother was the “safe parent.” Mr. Campione fought like a tiger and indebted himself trying to wrest control of the children from a woman he knew to be unstable and a potential risk to them, but nobody listened to him. Why? Because everyone licenced to deal with family issues on behalf of the state – social service agencies, police, lawyers and judges – are trained in the same mythology about women as Judge Stong was. They are all singing from the same hymn book: trust the woman, suspect the man, even when the evidence screams not to.

Let a man raise his hand once to a woman (or not, but simply be accused of doing so), and he will be whisked out of his children’s lives for a year at least. You can be sure that if the father of these children had exhibited one-hundredth of the myriad clues to Elaine Campione’s potential risk to her children’s safety, the CAS would have eaten him for breakfast.

The “system” didn’t fail Elaine Campione. The system failed those two little girls by enabling a woman’s psychosis at the expense of her children. There is nothing “unimaginable” in this case at all. It has all happened before.

Everyone involved in this fiasco should be locked up in a room and forced to review the case of Zachary Turner, the thirteen-month old baby who was drugged and drowned in Newfoundland in 2003 by his psychotic mother, Shirley, while she was out on bail for the third time on charges of murdering Zachary’s father. And after that forced to review the case of Toronto baby Jordan Heikamp, who in 2001 was starved to death by his mother under the blind eyes of the Catholic Children’s Aid Society (no jail time) and Toronto baby Sara Cao, abused to death in 2001 by her mother Elizabeth. Christie Blatchford, who covered that case, said the mother (again no jail time) “was treated by the system, and in the main by the media, as a pitiful [woman], worthy of sympathy.”

Sound familiar? Plus ça change. When fathers kill, they are not assigned any motivation but their own evil impulses. When mothers kill, everyone in the system kicks into denial mode, and assumes the fault has to lie elsewhere – anywhere, as long as the woman doesn’t have to take responsibility for her actions, and can be offered sympathy. When fathers show disturbing tendencies, the system acts, or tries to. When mothers show disturbing behaviour, the system protects the victimizer.

Little Sophia and Serena Campione did not have to die. They were allowed to die because of a belief system that denies the truth of human nature. Both men and women are capable of aggression.

Statistically in Canada, mothers abuse their children more than fathers. When will our society really consider the “best interests” of the child rather than throwing them under the bus of a superannuated and pernicious ideology?

About Me

I am Politically active and right of centre on most issues with the odd exception such as legalization of "Mary Jane".
I advocate on changes to Family Law - an incredibly dysfunctional arena where parents are pitted against one another and children are the victims.
My picture will sometimes show me as a younger man simply because I like them.

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Leading causes of Injury to Women 2006

In 2006, unintentional falls were the leading cause of nonfatal injury among women of every age group, and rates generally increased with age. Women aged 65 years and older had the highest rate of injury due to unintentional falls (59.7 per 1,000 women), while slightly more than 19 per 1,000 women aged 18–34 and 35–44 years experienced fall-related injuries. Unintentional injuries sustained as motor vehicle occupants were the second leading cause of injury among 18- to 34-year-olds (18.7 per 1,000), while unintentional overexertion was the second leading cause of injury among women aged 35–44 and 45–64 years (13.7 and 9.3 per 1,000, respectively). Among women aged 65 years and older, being unintentionally struck by or against an object was the second leading cause of injury (5.7 per 1,000).

Injury related Emergency Department Visits

Unintentional and intentional injuries each represented a higher proportion of emergency department (ED) visits for men than women in 2005. Among women and men aged 18 years and older, unintentional injuries accounted for 19.9 and 27.5 percent of ED visits, respectively, while intentional injuries, or assault, represented 1.4 and 2.7 percent of visits, respectively. Among both women and men, unintentional injury accounted for a higher percentage of ED visits among those living in non-metropolitan areas, while adults living in metropolitan areas had a slightly higher percentage of ED visits due to intentional injury.